John Ashbery





ASHBERY’S PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE: A MODEL FOR SEXUAL CITIZENSHIP

John Ashbery aspired to write the poem that the critique could not talk about.²² His poems are sometimes described as difficult to discuss because they do little more than invoke a feeling. One literary critic notes the difficulty in talking concretely about Ashbery’s poetry because his subject is aesthetic consciousness:

At the center of an Ashbery poem isn’t usually a subject (à la Philip Larkin) but a feeling (à la Jackson Pollock). . . The best thing to do, then, is not to try to understand the poems but to try to take pleasure from their arrangement, the way you listen to music.²³

This suggests that scholarly interpretations of Ashbery’s work are not only difficult, but also, necessarily, subjective. Scholars also comment that John Ashbery leaves himself and his homosexuality out of his poetry.²⁴ Rather than hiding or revealing homosexual content, his poems “behave” differently no matter what their subject.²⁵ Scholars have dubbed this distorted behavior “homotextual.”²⁶ One poem, My Philosophy of Life, invokes decidedly homotextual images and concepts, which are useful to inform a queer approach to sexual citizenship.

MY PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE²⁷

 

Just when I thought there wasn't room enough

for another thought in my head, I had this great idea—

call it a philosophy of life, if you will. Briefly,

it involved living the way philosophers live,

according to a set of principles. OK, but which ones?

That was the hardest part, I admit, but I had a

kind of dark foreknowledge of what it would be like.

Everything, from eating watermelon or going to the bathroom

or just standing on a subway platform,²⁸ lost in thought

for a few minutes, or worrying about rain forests,

would be affected, or more precisely, inflected

by my new attitude. I wouldn’t be preachy,

or worry about children and old people, except

in the general way prescribed by our clockwork universe.

Instead I’d sort of let things be what they are²⁹

while injecting them with the serum of the new moral climate

I thought I’d stumbled into, as a stranger

accidentally presses against a panel and a bookcase slides back,

revealing a winding staircase with greenish light

somewhere down below, and he automatically steps inside

and the bookcase slides shut, as is customary on such occasions.

At once a fragrance overwhelms him—not saffron, not lavender,

but something in between. He thinks of cushions, like the one

his uncle’s Boston bull terrier used to lie on watching him

quizzically, pointed ear-tips folded over.³⁰ And then the great rush

is on. Not a single idea emerges from it. It's enough

to disgust you with thought. But then you remember something William James

wrote in some book of his you never read—it was fine, it had the fineness,

the powder of life dusted over it, by chance, of course, yet still looking

for evidence of fingerprints. Someone had handled it

even before he formulated it, though the thought was his and his alone.³¹

It’s fine, in summer, to visit the seashore.

There are lots of little trips to be made.

A grove of fledgling aspens welcomes the traveler. Nearby

are the public toilets where weary pilgrims have carved

their names and addresses, and perhaps messages as well,

messages to the world, as they sat

and thought about what they’d do after using the toilet

and washing their hands at the sink, prior to stepping out

into the open again.³² Had they been coaxed in by principles,

and were their words philosophy, of however crude a sort?³³

I confess I can move no farther along this train of thought—

Something’s blocking it. Something I'm

not big enough to see over. Or maybe I’m frankly scared.

What was the matter with how I acted before?³⁴

But maybe I can come up with a compromise—I'll let

things be what they are, sort of. In the autumn I’ll put up jellies

and preserves, against the winter cold and futility,

and that will be a human thing, and intelligent as well.³⁵

I won't be embarrassed by my friends’ dumb remarks,

or even my own, though admittedly that’s the hardest part,

as when you are in a crowded theater and something you say

riles the spectator in front of you, who doesn’t even like the idea

of two people near him talking together. Well he’s

got to be flushed out so the hunters can have a crack at him—

this thing works both ways, you know.³⁶ You can’t always

be worrying about others and keeping track of yourself

at the same time.³⁷ That would be abusive, and about as much fun

as attending the wedding of two people you don't know. ³⁸

Still, there’s a lot of fun to be had in the gaps between ideas.

That’s what they’re made for! Now I want you to go out there

and enjoy yourself, and yes, enjoy your philosophy of life, too.

They don’t come along every day.39 Look out! There's a big one...

 

_______________________________

22 See Meghan O’Rourke, How to Read John Ashbery, Slate (March 9, 2005) available at www.slate.com/id/2114565/.

23 Id.

24 See JOHN SHOPTAW, ON THE OUTSIDE LOOKING OUT: JOHN ASHBERY’S POETRY, 4 (1994).

25 Id.

26 Id. Shoptaw notes, “Ashbery’s poetics evolved during the late 1940s and early 1950s, a particularly repressive and paranoid period of American history marked by the investigation and harassment of homosexuals and Communists by Senator McCarthy, the House Un-American Activities Committee, the FBI, the Selective Service System, and the police.” Id. During these volatile years, Ashbery avoided the draft in the Korean War by disclosing his homosexuality. Id. at 5. Misrepresentation of queer principles in Ashbery’s works was not only an aesthetic principle but a survival tactic. Id.

27 JOHN ASHBERY, My Philosophy of Life, NOTES FROM THE AIR 174–75 (2007) originally in CAN YOU HEAR, BIRD (1995).

28 A philosophy of life, as with a legal theory of citizenship, necessarily must acknowledge the physical self, including biological functions such as eating and going to the bathroom. Such a philosophy must also acknowledge basic freedoms of movement, such as the ability to use a subway.

29 Ashbery’s philosophy of life allows him to step out of his cerebral mind, a mind that is concerned with worldly problems such as the depletion of the planet’s natural resources and rain forests, a mind that can become preachy about society’s role to care for children and the elderly. Ashbery’s philosophy acknowledges the importance of self and the individual. “Letting things be what they are” speaks to an awareness of individual limitations. No matter how much one may want to change the environment or social conditions, one must understand his or her place in the world (standing on a subway platform) and be able to find peace within that world.

30 This living-in-the-moment philosophy permits the individual to take in scents and fantasies and to enter into the hidden thoughts of one’s mind (as if entering into hidden rooms behind bookshelves).

31 “Chance” is a core underpinning to Ashbery’s philosophy of life. It is also a core underpinning of a queered jurisprudence of citizenship. How one responds to sexuality (whether positively or negatively as in “disgust”) necessarily depends on the frames of reference available to the individual. One’s frames of reference are informed by one’s education, religion, and life experiences. Here, Ashbery describes a frame of reference as “something William James wrote in some book of his that you never read.” This particular frame of reference is highly personal and not universal. A philosophy of life should be broad enough to understand the myriad personal points of reference that citizens have, many of which (if not nearly all) are based entirely on chance. One’s biological sex, race, ethnicity, religion, and ethnicity exist by chance. Arguably, whether one is heterosexual or homosexual is also by chance. But, there is not a bright line designating where chance stops and choice begins. Being born a girl to a family that is poor and fundamentalist Christian does not mean that one will die in that same condition. One can choose to peel away layers of religion and ethnicity, one can choose to educate oneself in nuclear physics, one can choose to navigate the socio-economic ladder, and one can change one’s gender. The tension between chance and choice exists in every life. Ashbery’s acknowledgement of chance emphasizes that frames of reference depend entirely on one’s chance experiences, including how one might ground a fleeting moment in a thought shared by William James.

William James is an American psychologist and philosopher, trained as a medical doctor. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_James. Brother of the gay novelist, Henry James, he wrote prolifically about a number of topics including pragmatic theories of truth, which purport that the value of any truth depends on its use to the person who holds it. Id. “James’s pragmatism includes the view that the world is a mosaic of diverse experiences that can only be properly interpreted and understood through an application of ‘radical empiricism.’ Radical empiricism . . . asserts that the world and experience can never be halted for an entirely objective analysis, if nothing else the mind of the observer and simple act of observation will affect the outcome of any empirical approach to truth as the mind and its experiences, and nature are inseparable. James's emphasis on diversity as the default human condition . . . has maintained a strong influence in American culture, especially among liberals.” Id.

Ashbery alludes to a William James thought, but there is no way of knowing which one. Curiously, the interpretation of Ashbery’s inclusion of “chance” in his philosophy of life is consistent with the spirit of William James’ writings about the pragmatism of truth. There is no single truth to which every person has a frame of reference. Frames of reference are necessarily based on the chance experiences of the individual. Hence, like a legal theory of sexual citizenship, a philosophy of life must situate that which is chance alongside that which is not chance. Such a philosophy must be broad enough to encompass the diversity of chance life experiences, including queer experiences. A libertarian theory of sexual citizenship is likely the only theory that can accommodate such diversity of chance.

32 This is an allusion to queer sexual behavior. It is queer because of the transgressive nature of engaging in a presumed private sexual act in a public space. Queer poets frequently write about sex in public places. See Melinda Goodman, New Comers, THE WORLD IN US 119 (women having sex in a church basement bathroom); Wayne Koestenbaum, Tea Dance, THE WORLD IN US 152 (young men exposing themselves on a train, men masturbating on stoops at Fire Island, boy watching a man soaping himself in the shower, men drilling holes in the walls between toilet stalls).

Queer sex in public places is an important analogy for the public-private discourse of sexuality. Courts have indicated a willingness to protect queer rights to sexual autonomy based on privacy doctrine. See e.g., Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003) (“The policy of punishing consenting adults for private acts was not much discussed in the early legal literature. We can infer that one reason for this was the very private nature of the conduct.”). One reading of Lawrence suggests that state anti-sodomy laws are unconstitutional because they infringe on citizens’ privacy rights rooted in the liberty clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The problem with this reading is that it relegates queer sexuality to only private places. It keeps gays and lesbians in the “closets” of their private homes.

It is not possible, nor desirable, to cabin sexuality in the private home. Sexuality is and should be displayed publicly. Two examples illustrate. First, better court decisions have recognized that expressions of sexuality in public may be protected as a First Amendment right if the expression is a political one. See e.g., Fricke v. Lynch, 491 F. Supp. 381 (RI 1980) (holding that a student’s right to attend his high school prom with his gay date is protected by the First Amendment). Second, marriage is a commonly accepted display of sexuality, since the marriage ceremony is often celebrated publicly. Courts have protected marriage (or marriage-like) rights for samesex couples based on equal protection grounds. See e.g., Varnum v. Brien, 763 N.W.2d 862 (2009). Notably, courts that uphold marriage (or marriage-like) rights for same-sex couples have not based their decisions on citizens’ rights to display sexuality publicly in a marriage ceremony. However, the corollary to protecting marriage rights is that same-sex couples will be able to be more public about sexuality. These examples of publicly displaying sexuality are relatively noncontroversial. What is more controversial is engaging in sexual conduct in public spaces. Privacy doctrine and equal protection doctrine do not provide legal means for securing such a right. It may not even be desirable to find space in the U.S. Constitution for guaranteeing such a right, but a queer approach to sexual citizenship should include tenets that make sexuality more public.

Queer sexual conduct is unlikely to result in procreation, so we need to think about queer sexual conduct for what it is—a physical act. It is a physical act comparable to eating, urinating, and defecating. Society provides public spaces for these three physical acts, and may also need to provide public spaces for sexual conduct. Queer culture suggests that this is possible, since queers frequently have sex in public places, including bathrooms, bathhouses, locker rooms, showers, bookstores, bars, alleys, theaters, beaches, and parks. The world has not come to an end because of this behavior. Instead, public sex could improve the lives of citizens because it is convenient. This convenience allows people to release more regularly sexual tension and aggression, which further enables them to focus on more important tasks of the day—work, school, parenting. If we view sexual conduct in the same light as other physical activities, such as eating, urinating, and defecating, it becomes irrational to create a legal theory of citizenship based on trivial characteristics such as how and where one has sex. It would be just as untenable to discriminate against a person who has oral sex with men in public restrooms as it would be to discriminate against a person who eats vegan food with men in public restaurants. Ashbery also notes the experience of engaging in sexual behavior and then ritually (symbolically) sanitizing oneself of that experience before appearing in public. This suggests that it is no more unsanitary to have sex in a public restroom than it is to urinate. Health concerns are not viable reasons to ban public sex. Society can promote healthy public sex acts in ways similar to providing wash basins, toilet paper, and tampon dispensers. This argument deviates from sex-positive queer theories; it is a sex-neutral argument. Sex-positive arguments may advocate sex in public places based on the liberty to do what feels good. Here, the aim is to promote an environment that de-emphasizes sex. Humans are animals. We fuck like animals. We should treat sex the same way we treat our other animalistic needs (e.g., eating)—neither positive nor negative. Current social mores make it imprudent to discuss sex publicly and more imprudent to engage in sex publicly. This poses problems for those who are perceived to engage in transgressive sexual behavior, since, as Ashbery questions, there is no reason to impose such a moral judgment. If the social norm becomes one that views sex neutrally, based upon norms of open sexuality, it may be that this same sex-neutral approach inadvertently stigmatizes those who choose not to have sex. That is, non-sexual persons become the transgressors. However, stigmatizing nonsexual persons is unnecessary, since the liberty to have sex includes the liberty not to have sex. Nonsexual persons do not become marginalized under this model, since the ultimate goal of sex-neutrality is to de-emphasize sex. In a society where sex is neutral and de-emphasized, it will matter little whether a person has sex or not.

33 The core of Ashbery’s philosophy of life is likely to be found in the “crude” philosophies written on bathroom walls. These philosophies, sexual in nature, suggest a validity to queer theorists who “encourage us . . . to fuck our way to freedom.” See Glick supra note 11, at 19. Philosophically, we must acknowledge that we are animals and that we have a sexual self. Animals engage in sexual conduct. There is a biological need to engage in sexual conduct. Queers, by openly engaging in sexual behaviors and openly and honestly discussing physical desires (e.g., writing “crude” sexual sayings on restroom walls) push the boundaries of what is considered transgressive sexually. By pushing these boundaries, society’s attitudes about sex can change, although it would be naïve to expect this change to occur quickly. Current discourse concerning the rights of same-sex couples to marry serves as an example.

Some gay and lesbian rights activists push for total marriage equality in the face of many citizens viewing homosexual behavior as transgressive. In this discourse, courts and society have been forced to think about why same-sex sexual behavior is transgressive, and, indeed, the majority opinion has shifted in favor of viewing samesex sexual activity as less transgressive. This increased acceptance helps explain the shift in judicial philosophy from the1986 Bowers v. Hardwick decision (same-sex sodomy is morally wrong and states have the right to regulate this immoral behavior) to the2003 Lawrence v. Texas decision (overturning Bowers and stating that the “continuance [of Bowers] demeans the lives of homosexual persons”). Pushing the limits of sexuality in society helps move society in a direction that accepts what was once considered transgressive. Today, the majority of citizens in the United States would likely agree that it is morally unacceptable to beat a homosexual and leave him for dead tied to a post, evidence by the 2009 passage of the Matthew Shepard Act, which criminalizes hate crimes against sexual minority groups.

There exists the possibility of backlash when gay activists foist their agendas on society too quickly. For example, there was a rash of states that passed mini DOMAs (Defense of Marriage Acts) refusing to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states after the Hawaii Supreme Court poised it state to allow same-sex couples to marry. See Baehr v. Lewin, 74 Haw. 645 (1993). By passing mini DOMAs, many states drew a line in the sand regarding “marriage” for same-sex couples. But, it was necessary to push the limits of what is acceptable sexually in society so that in 2010 the majority of citizens are willing to accept or tolerate civil unions or domestic partnerships for same-sex couples.

These examples suggest that it is possible to fuck your way to freedom. By engaging in transgressive behavior, and discussing it, including writing it on the walls in public restrooms, the public is forced to acknowledge that the behavior exists. A precursor to sexual liberty is the acknowledgement that certain sexual behaviors are not criminal, immoral, and, perhaps, transgressive. Hence, it may be that Ashbery’s philosophy of life can be reduced to crude principles carved on the walls of public restrooms.

34 The train of thought that Ashbery is unable to advance is the thought that a philosophy of life may be rooted in the crude messages on bathroom walls as discussed supra, note 33. He admits that he cannot pursue this thought because of something bigger than him (internalized homophobia? false consciousness? majoritarian moral beliefs? religion? tradition?) or because of fear (fear of ostracism? fear of criminal stigma in a pre-Lawrence society where same-sex sodomy is outlawed in many states?). Yet, he legitimately questions why his actions (interpreted as engaging in sexual acts in a public toilet) are viewed as immoral.

35 Ashbery’s solution to reconciling his perceived immoral behavior in a public restroom is to compromise. Here, the compromise is to balance transgressive sexual behavior in a public restroom with non-transgressive behavior of putting up jellies and preserves against the cold of winter—a sensible and human thing that advances his own human condition. Ashbery’s compromise is pragmatic. Transgressive behavior cannot stand alone as a philosophy of life. Having sex in a public restroom symbolizes difference between citizens based on sexual behavior. Putting up jellies symbolizes sameness. This sameness-difference distinction also exists in feminist jurisprudence, where liberal feminists and formal equality feminists emphasize how women are similar to men and radical feminists emphasize how women are different from men. Ashbery’s compromise is to “let things be as they are, sort of.” This philosophy is similar to pragmatic feminists’ approach to addressing the double-bind of the sameness-difference distinction, where both alternatives have negative consequences. For pragmatists, the solution is to choose the alternative that hinders empowerment the least and incrementally advances the group toward ideal justice. See e.g., Margaret Radin, The Pragmatist and the Feminist, 63 S. CAL. L.REV. 1699 (1990). Pragmatism may work well for a theory of sexual citizenship, where, as Ashbery describes, the correct solution in a given situation may be having the wisdom to know when to push the envelope and when to “let things be as they are, sort of.” This philosophy acknowledges the limits of imposing change too quickly in law and society, and it also acknowledges the realities of the limitations of a minority group changing the views of a majority.

36 It is easier to understand these phrases if you imagine that the person in the theater is with his or her date (partner, spouse, lover, significant other), who is of the same gender. Imagine that the couple’s sexuality is made obvious through their own discussions, and “something you say riles the [homophobic] spectator in front of you.”

 Ashbery’s response is that the homophobe must be flushed out, so the hunters can have a crack at him. Ashbery’s response is similar to the jurisprudence in Hurley v. Irish-American GLB Group of Boston, 515 U.S. 557, and Boy Scouts of America v. Dale, 530 U.S. 640—flush out the intolerants so the hunters can find them. That is, force people to admit their prejudices instead of allowing them to hide behind the status quo of ethnicity (Irish), religion (duty to god), and patriarchy (morally straight). The solution is not to shoot the homophobes like quail. Instead, American jurisprudence aims to preserve and protect these rights of association under the First Amendment. To preserve First Amendment rights, homophobic associations need only to hang a banner across their establishment stating, “This is the Boy Scouts of America, a homophobic organization that discriminates against queers.” Queer jurisprudence embraces the preservation of these rights, since such a banner allows non-homophobic individuals to dissociate from such organizations. Too, society can dissociate by insisting that these organizations not benefit from taxpayer dollars (except, of course, that these organizations may still qualify for 501(c)(3) tax status, which means that contributions to these organizations may still be tax deductible).

Flushing out the faggot (or flushing out the [insert racial expletive] who hides in forests after escaping from the master’s plantation) so the hunters can have a crack at them works both ways. Not only must we flush out the transgressors, but also we must flush out the bigots, sexists, and homophobes who hide behind the status quo. Queers and homophobes, alike, must be subjected to the same “flushing out” in society. It is no more appropriate for a homophobe to hide in public theaters than it is for queers to hide in theater’s public toilets. Flushing out encourages an openness in society, a public discourse. One of the notable differences between a queer jurisprudence and racial-minority jurisprudence is that queers lack visibility. In addition to demanding that intolerants avail themselves publicly, “flushing out” serves as a euphemism for increasing queer visibility. In order for Ashbery’s queer philosophy to work, queers must come out of the closet.

37 Stated differently, mind your own business. Stated differently, live and let live. Admittedly, there is danger in this philosophy of life. A libertarian ideal requires that citizens have the freedom to engage in behavior without undue interference from others. This libertarian notion may be consistent with courts’ willingness to extend privacy rights to queer individuals engaging in consensual sexual conduct. This same philosophy might also place women at risk, if their husbands who rape them are beyond the reach of courts under the same privacy doctrine. Yet, this queer libertarian philosophy easily reconciles the potential harm to women by using the caveat noted by John Stewart Mill in his essay on Liberty, where he states, “[t]he only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community against his will is to prevent harm to others.” Quoted in H.L.A. Hart, Immorality and Treason, 62 LISTENER 162-63 (1959). But, spousal rape, and any other sort of rape for that matter, is beyond the scope of the present paper. As I noted in Part One, the working definition of sex is limited to consensual acts. John Stewart Mill’s caveat necessarily excludes rape from the realm of acceptable private acts under a libertarian philosophy, since rape causes physical and emotional harm to others. Thus, there is little harm in adopting Ashbery’s libertarian, live-and-let-live philosophy of life.

38 Attending weddings of people you know is not fun when you are always the bride’s maid and never the bride. Queer translation: gay men and pear-shaped fag hags are relegated to the groups designated as bachelors and bachelorettes, at whom grooms and brides fling garter belts and bouquets of flowers. Swooning and dreaming: If only I could be so lucky to have someone sweep me off my feet, I, too, could waltz down the aisle and register for shiny kitchen appliances at Macy’s Department Store. Attending weddings might be tolerable if you are nine years old and the wedding is for your mother and your new step-father. It might even be joyful, peaceful and, perhaps, fun if you are the gushing mother of the bride. Attending the wedding of two people you do not know teeters on abuse, especially for queers who are denied this right.

Radical queer theorists reject the ideas of same-sex marriage because they reject the bag of societal ills that accompany marriage; namely, that marriage is a gender factory that perpetuates the subordination of women to men. Equality theorists suggest that so long as marriage is available to one group in society, it must be available to all groups in society. Here, pragmatic feminism and Ashbery’s queer pragmatism are instructive: confront each dilemma and choose the alternative that hinders empowerment the least and furthers ideal justice the most. See Radin supra note 35, at 1701. The radical queer ideal is to dismantle marriage. Marriage as an institution is already headed toward demise, evidenced by the increasing number of people who remain single. See Leanne Italie, Researchers Report Increasing Number of Older, Unmarried and Better Educated Mothers (May 5, 2010) available at www.latimes.com/sns-ap-us-fea-parenting-american-motherhood,0,3991333.story (discussing a study by the Pew Research Center). Thus, an acceptable queer position toward marriage is to advocate an intermediate solutions (civil unions for everyone), which serves the purposes of queer equality and furthering society toward dismantling the inequalities in the marriage institution.

39 Two points are notable here. First, Ashbery acknowledges that there is no one truth to life. He expounds his philosophy but recognizes that the particulars of his philosophy are as unique as the chance life experiences he uses to frame them. Part of his philosophy is acknowledging other philosophies, encouraging individuals to pursue their philosophies. This necessarily suggests that Ashbery’s philosophy of life is broad enough to accommodate potentially competing philosophies. Again, the only philosophy capable of meeting the objective of accommodating multiple life philosophies is a libertarian one.

Second, Ashbery underscores the idea that life is a string of fleeting moments. Recognizing individual limitations, one should not be overly consumed with, for example, the spiraling condition of rain forests, the elderly, and children. An integral part of his philosophy understands our human limitations as animals. We eat. We fuck. We die. When we are too consumed with righting all the world’s wrongs, we risk savoring the scant few epiphanies in life, epiphanies that should consume us while we are standing on subway platforms waiting for a train. Philosophies of life and legal theories of sexual citizenship that deny us these moments are not worth considering.

https://www.kentlaw.iit.edu/Documents/Institutes%20and%20Centers/ILH/jerry-thomas.pdf

MINHA FILOSOFIA DE VIDA

Assim que pensei que não tinha mais espaço
para um outro pensamento na cabeça, tive essa grande idéia—
chame de filosofia de vida, se quiser. Em tempo,
consiste em levar uma vida como a dos filósofos,
de acordo com uma série de princípios. Ok, mas quais?

Essa é a parte mais dura, certo, mas eu tinha uma
espécie de nebuloso pressentimento do que ela seria.
Tudo, desde comer melancia ou ir ao banheiro
ou apenas ficar numa estação do metrô, no mundo da lua
por uns minutos, ou preocupar-se com as florestas tropicais
seria afetado, ou, mais precisamente, modificado
por minha nova atitude. Eu não seria rezingueiro
ou preocupado com as crianças e os velhos, exceto
da forma mais geral prescrita por nosso universo mecânico.
Em vez disso eu meio que deixaria as coisas serem como são
enquanto nelas injetasse o soro da nova atmosfera moral,
que eu achava que havia encontrado, como quando um estranho
pressiona acidentalmente um painel e uma estante abre-se
revelando uma escada em espiral com luzes esverdeadas
lá por baixo, e ele automaticamente entra no recinto
e a estante fecha-se, como é de uso nessas ocasiões.
E, de repente, um perfume o domina—nem açafrão, nem lavanda
mas algo a meio termo. Ele pensa em almofadas, como a que
o bull-terrier de seu tio em Boston costumava deitar-se olhando-o
zombeteiro, as pontas das orelhas dobradas. Então dá-se a grande

virada. Nem uma única idéia emerge. É o suficiente
para lhe indispor com o pensamento. Mas então, você lembra algo >que
>William James
escreveu em um de seus livros que você nunca leu—e era fino, >possuía a
finura do pó da vida espargido por sobre, por acaso, é claro, mas
ainda à busca da evidência de impressões digitais. Alguém >manipulara-o
antes de ele havê-lo formulado, embora o pensamento fosse dele
e só dele.

É bom no verão ir pro litoral.
Há uma série de viagens curtas a fazer.
Um bosque de emplumadas faias recebe o viajante. Perto
há os toaletes públicos onde peregrinos exaustos gravaram
seus nomes e endereços e, quem sabe, recados também,
recados para o mundo, enquanto sentavam
e pensavam no que fariam depois de usar o toalete
e lavar as mãos à pia, antes de cair
no mundo de novo. Será que eles foram persuadidos por princípios
e suas palavras eram filosofia, de um tipo assim mais grosseiro?
Eu confesso que não consigo seguir mais longe nessa linha de >pensamento—
algo bloqueia. Algo que não sou
grande o bastante para sobrepor a vista. Ou talvez me encontre >assustado.
Qual era mesmo a questão de como eu agia antes?
Mas talvez eu possa firmar um pacto—vou
deixar as coisas serem como são, lá sei. No outono vou guardar >geléias
e compotas, contra o frio e a futilidade do inverno,
e isso será algo humano, e inteligente também.
Não ficarei envergonhado pelos comentários estúpidos dos amigos,
ou mesmo meus, embora essa seja a pior parte
como quando se está num cinema lotado e algo que se diz
irrita o espectador à sua frente, que sequer gosta da idéia
de duas pessoas conversando perto dele. Ora, ele
deve ser evacuado, de modo que os cães de caça possam arrancar->lhe um pedaço—
essas coisas têm mão-dupla, sabe. Você não pode
cuidar sempre dos outros e achar seu paradeiro
ao mesmo tempo. Isso seria um abuso, e ao menos tão engraçado >quanto
ir ao casamento de duas pessoas que você não conhece.
É, há um mundo de graça que se tem entre o vão de duas idéias.
É para o que elas servem! Agora eu quero que você saia
e tire uma folga, e, claro, curta a sua filosofia de vida, também.
Não é fácil conciliar ambas todo dia. Olha só! Essa é boa... 

John Ashbery

Tradução de Ruy Vasconcelos, 2017-04-11

http://afetivagem.blogspot.pt/2007/04/o-que-virou-vida-depois-da-tv-ashbery.html



The Vermont Notebook, written by John Ashbery and illustrated by Joe Brainard

John Ashbery: The existential loneliness of a brilliant poet

Back in the late 1970s I teamed up with the late poet James Tate to teach a graduate class in contemporary poetry. Among the poets we studied that fall was John Ashbery, who was still relatively new to us, but especially to me. I remember reading Ashbery’s brilliant long poem based on a baroque painting by the Italian painter Parmigianino (the little guy from Parma). The painting shows the young artist—aged 21—as seen through the distortions of a convex mirror, like those used by barbers at the time. Given the configuration of the optics, the artist seems to either hide or greet you with his left hand, which is larger than the face itself. In the background is the workshop Parmigianino worked in (we assume): a glazed window to the left, a piece of furniture to the right and the ceiling of the room bending like the ark of a rainbow.

I had gone over the 4,000 lines of Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror five or six times, trying to learn what I could in those pre-Google days about the 50-year-old Ashbery’s poetry. But, except for Wallace Stevens and the early W.H. Auden, Ashbery was like no other poet I had read before. I was not alone in feeling a sense of bafflement and attraction to this poet, of course. But what language could a teacher-critic employ in speaking of this radically new phenomenon? I tried terms like existential metaphysics and metapoetics to reach my students. At that point, Tate, who had remained silent up to that point, came out with the neologism, what about “meta-spaghetti?” which of course had the students laughing out loud.

I was not alone in feeling a sense of bafflement and attraction to this poet, of course. 

And that, friends, was the end of that particular experiment. Or the beginning, for me at least. How to approach John Ashbery? With a puzzled laugh as you entered his world? Or with the sharpest archeological/critical tools to uncover what the poet was saying? Or seemed to say.  

Fast forward 20 years, and I am having dinner with Ashbery and his husband, David Kermani, and Tate, who had grown close to Ashbery in those years. I found Ashbery a delight: quiet, gentlemanly, affable, in some ways approachable, in some ways not. In other words, very much like the self-portrait he gives us in the poem seemingly addressed to Parmigianino, but of course very much to himself. “The soul establishes itself,” Ashbery’s narrator tells us,

But how far can it swim out through the eyes
And still return safely to its nest? The surface
Of the mirror being convex, the distance increases
Significantly; that is, enough to make the point
That the soul is a captive, treated humanely, kept
In suspension, unable to advance much farther
Than your look as it intercepts the picture.

That is Ashbery, then, like Stevens earlier: hiding behind the thick, sometimes impenetrable matrix of language, and gazing out at us as we gaze back. “The poem must resist the intelligence / Almost successfully,” Stevens wrote. And Ashbery sounds a similar note, over and over, as he did in an interview for the London Times, when he explained what he was doing in his poetry by insisting that he did not after all “find any direct statements in life.”

I found Ashbery a delight: quiet, gentlemanly, affable, in some ways approachable, in some ways not.

 

What his poetry did try to do, though, was imitate and reproduce “the way knowledge or awareness comes to me, which is by fits and starts and by indirection.” And he certainly did not believe that “poetry arranged in neat patterns would reflect that situation.”

Ashbery began reaping in the awards even before he was 30. First it was the Yale Younger Poets Prize, awarded by Auden. Then, in 1976, it was the Pulitzer, the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award, all for Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror. Eight years later it was the Bollingen, then the Robert Frost Medal, then, for his work as a translator of French poetry (having spent much of the 1960s in Paris, mastering French and getting to know the French literary establishment) he was made an Officier de la Légion d'honneur by the Republic of France. And as late as 2011, by which time he was in his mid-80s, he was awarded the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.

But what stays with me in reading Ashbery is the sense of existential loneliness beneath the linguistic play and multiple voices he so brilliantly mimics, from the historical, to the philosophical, to the sounds one hears on the streets of New York, where he spent so much of his time, to the echoes one hears in those B movies he loved to binge on.

What stays with me in reading Ashbery is the sense of existential loneliness beneath the linguistic play and multiple voices. 

 And then there are those comic books he read as a boy, Daffy Duck and—better—Popeye and company, figures which inhabit his brilliant sestina, “Farm Implements and Rutabagas in a Landscape,” where Olive Oyl and Swee’Pea and Alice the Goon and the Sea Hag all make appearances, even as an ominous voice thunders from the heavens.

And then one thinks of a 12-year-old boy in upstate New York reading the comics with his younger brother, sensing the encroaching fates which will soon swallow his brother and leave him more alone than ever, so that no amount of language, however brilliant, however uproarious, however voluminous, will ever be able to console the man.

Paul Mariani, https://www.americamagazine.org/arts-culture/2017/09/08/john-ashbery-existential-loneliness-brilliant-poet